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in a wheel, a grist mill and a saw mill.By that time Mary, his wife, had presentedhim with one of the two greatest gifts that a woman can ever bestow, and presently asign was painted ove

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Title: Mary Minds Her Business

Author: George Weston

Release Date: July 27, 2004 [EBook

#13034]

Language: English

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GUTENBERG EBOOK MARY MINDSHER BUSINESS ***

Produced by Audrey Longhurst, AudreyLonghurst, Mary Meehan and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team

MARY MINDS HER BUSINESS

BY GEORGE WESTON

Author of "Oh, Mary, Be Careful," "TheApple-Tree Girl," and "You NeverSaw Such a Girl."

1920

To Karl Edwin Harriman

One of the Noblest of them All

G.W

MARY MINDS HER BUSINESS

So that you may understand my heroine, I

am going to write a preface and tell youabout her forebears

In the latter part of the seventeenth

century, there was a young blacksmith inour part of the country named JosiahSpencer He had a quick eye, a quick handand a quicker temper

Because of his quick eye he married a girl

named Mary McMillan Because of hisquick hand, he was never in need of

employment And because of his quicktemper, he left the place of his birth oneday and travelled west until he came to aford which crossed the Quinebaug River

There, before the week was over, he hadbought from Oeneko, the Indian chief, fivehundred acres on each side of the river—land in those days being the cheapestknown commodity Hewing his own

timber and making his own hardware, hesoon built a shop of his own, and the fordbeing on the main road between Hartfordand the Providence Plantations, it wasn'tlong before he had plenty of business.Above the ford was a waterfall Josiah put

in a wheel, a grist mill and a saw mill.

By that time Mary, his wife, had presentedhim with one of the two greatest gifts that

a woman can ever bestow, and presently asign was painted over the shop:

JOSIAH SPENCER & SON

In course of time young Josiah made hisfirst horse-shoe and old Josiah made hislast

On a visit to New Amsterdam, the youngman had already fallen in love with a girlnamed Matilda Sturtevant They weremarried in 1746 and had one of thoseround old-fashioned families when twelvechildren seemed to be the minimum and

anything less created comment.

Two of the boys were later killed in theRevolution, another became SupremeCourt justice, but the likeliest one

succeeded to the business of Josiah

Spencer & Son, which was then making aspecialty of building wagons—and

building them so well that the shop had to

be increased in size again and again until

it began to have the appearance of quite arespectable looking factory

The third Spencer to own the businessmarried a Yankee—Patience Babcock—but Patience's only son married a French-Canadian girl—for even then the

Canadians were drifting down into ourpart of the country

So by that time, as you can see—and this

is an important part of my preface—theSpencer stock was a thrifty mixture ofYankee, Irish, Scotch, Dutch and Frenchblood—although you would never haveguessed it if you had simply seen the name

of one Josiah Spencer following another

as the owner of the Quinebaug WagonWorks

In the same year that the fourth JosiahSpencer succeeded to the business, abridge was built to take the place of theford and the waterfall was fortified by adam By that time a regular little town hadformed around the factory

The town was called New Bethel

It was at this stage of their history that theSpencers grew proud, making a hobby oftheir family tree and even possibly

breathing a sigh over vanished arms

coats-of-The fifth of the line, for instance, married

a Miss Copleigh of Boston He built a bighouse on Bradford Hill and brought herhome in a tally-ho The number of hertrunks and the size of her crinolines arespoken of to this day in our part of thecountry—also her manner of closing hereyes when she talked, and holding herlittle finger at an angle when drinking hertea She had only one child—fortunately ason

This son was the grandfather of our

heroine So you see we are getting warm

at last

The grandfather of our heroine was

probably the greatest Spencer of them all

Under his ownership the factory wasrebuilt of brick and stone He developedthe town both socially and industriallyuntil New Bethel bade fair to become one

of the leading cities in the state He

developed the water power by building agreat dam above the factory and forming alake nearly ten miles long He also

developed an artillery wheel which hasprobably rolled along every importantroad in the civilized world

Indeed he was so engaged in these

enterprises that he didn't marry until hewas well past forty-five Then one spring,going to Charlestown to buy his season'ssupply of pine, he came back with a bridefrom one of the oldest, one of the mostfamous families in all America.

There were three children to this marriage

—one son and two daughters

I will tell you about the daughters in myfirst chapter—two delightful old maidswho later had a baby between them—butfirst I must tell you about the seventh andlast Josiah

In his youth he was wild

This may have been partly due to that

irreducible minimum of Original Sinwhich (they say) is in all of us—andpartly due to his cousin Stanley.

Now I don't mean to say for a moment thatStanley Woodward was a natural bornvillain I don't think people are born thatway at all At first the idea probablystruck him as a sort of a joke "If anythinghappens to young Josiah," I can imaginehim thinking to himself with a grin, "I mayown this place myself some day… Whoknows?"

And from that day forward, he

unconsciously borrowed from the spiders

—if you can imagine a smiling spider—and began to spin

Did young Josiah want to leave the officeearly? Stanley smilingly did his work forhim.

Was young Josiah late the next morning?Stanley smilingly hid his absence

Did young Josiah yearn for life and

adventure? Stanley spun a few more websand they met that night in Brigg's liverystable

It didn't take much of this—unexpectedlylittle in fact—the last of the Spencersresembling one of those giant firecrackers

of bygone days—the bigger the cracker,the shorter the fuse Some say he married

an actress, which was one of the thingswhich were generally whispered when I

was a boy A Russian they said she was—which never failed to bring another gasp.Others say she was a beautiful bare-backrider in a circus and wore tights—whichwas another of the things which used to bewhispered when I was a boy, and not eventhen unless the children had first been sentfrom the room and only bosom friendswere present.

Whatever she was, young Josiah

disappeared with her, and no one saw himagain until his mother died in the mansion

on the hill Some say she died of a brokenheart, but I never believed in that, for ifsorrow could break the human heart Idoubt if many of us would be alive tosmile at next year's joys However thatmay be, I do believe that young Josiah

thought that he was partly responsible forhis mother's death He turned up at thefuneral with a boy seven years old; and bit

by bit we learned that he was separatedfrom his wife and that the court had givenhim custody of their only child

As you have probably noticed, there arefew who can walk so straight as thosewho have once been saved from the

crooked path There are few so intolerant

of fire as those poor, charred brands whohave once been snatched from the burning

After his mother's funeral young Spencersettled down to a life of atonement andtoil, till first his father and then even hiscousin Stanley were convinced of thechange which had taken place in the one-

time black sheep of the family.

By that time the patents on the artillerywheel had expired and a competition hadset in which was cutting down the profits

to zero Young Josiah began

experimenting on a new design whichfinally resulted in a patent upon a

combination ball and roller bearing Thiswas such an improvement upon everythingwhich had gone before, that graduallySpencer & Son withdrew from the

manufacture of wagons and wheels and designed their whole factory to makebearings

re-This wasn't done in a month or two, noreven in a year or two Indeed the returnedprodigal grew middle aged in the process

He also saw the possibilities of

harnessing the water power above thefactory to make electric current Thiscurrent was sold so cheaply that more andmore factories were drawn to New Betheluntil the fame of the city's products wereknown wherever the language of

commerce was spoken

At the height of his son's success, oldJosiah died, joining those silent members

of the firm who had gone before I oftenlike to imagine the whole seven of them,ghostly but inquisitive, following the

subsequent strange proceedings with

noiseless steps and eyes that missed

nothing; and in particular keeping watchupon the last living Josiah Spencer—aheavy, powerfully built man with a look of

melancholy in his eyes and a way of

sighing to himself as though asking a

question, and then answering it with amuffled "Yes… Yes…" This may havebeen partly due to the past and partly due

to the future, for the son whom he hadbrought home with him began to worryhim—a handsome young rascal who

simply didn't have the truth in him at

times, and who was buying presents forgirls almost before he was out of shorttrousers

His name was Paul—"Paul Vionel

Olgavitch Spencer," he sometimes proudlyrecited it, and whenever we heard of that

we thought of his mother

The older Paul grew, the handsomer he

grew And the handsomer he grew, thewilder he became and the less the truthwas in him At times he would go all rightfor a while, although he was always toofond of the river for his aunts' peace ofmind.

At a bend below the dam he had found asheltered basin, covered with grass andedged with trees And there he liked to lie,staring up into the sky and dreaming thosedreams of youth and adventure which arethe heritage of us all

Or else he would sit and watch the river,although he couldn't do it long, for itsswift movement seemed to fascinate himand excite him, and to arouse in him thedesire to follow it—to follow it wherever

it went These were his quieter moods.

Ordinarily there was something like, something Neck-or-Nothing abouthim A craving for excitement seemed toburn under him like a fire The full

gipsy-progression of correction marched uponhim and failed to make impression:

arguments, orders, warnings, threats,threshings and the stoppage of funds: none

of these seemed to improve him in theleast

Josiah's two sisters did their best, but theycould do nothing, either

"I wouldn't whip him again, Josiah," saidMiss Cordelia one night, timidly layingher hand upon her brother's arm "He'll be

all right when he's a little older… Youknow, dear … you were rather wild,yourself … when you were young… Pattyand I were only saying this morning that if

he takes after you, there's really nothing toworry about—"

"He's God's own punishment," said

Josiah, looking up wildly "I know—things I can't tell you You remember what

I say: that boy will disgrace us all…."

He did

One morning he suddenly and simplyvanished with the factory pay-roll and one

of the office stenographers

In the next twelve months Josiah seemed

to age at least twelve years—his cousinStanley watching him closely the while—and then one day came the news that PaulSpencer had shot and killed a man, whileattempting to hold him up, somewhere inBritish Columbia.

If you could have seen Josiah Spencer thatday you might have thought that the bullethad grazed his own poor heart

"It's God's punishment," he said over andover "For seven generations there hasbeen a Spencer & Son—a trust that wasleft to me by my father that I should pass it

on to my son And what have I done…!"Whereupon he made a gesture that wasn'tfar from despair—and in that gesture, such

as only those can make who know in theirhearts that they have shot the albatross,this preface brings itself to a close and atlast my story begins.

CHAPTER I

"Patty," said Miss Cordelia one morning,

"have you noticed Josiah lately?"

"Yes," nodded Miss Patricia, her eyes alittle brighter than they should have been

"Do you know," continued the other, hervoice dropping to a whisper, "I'm afraid

—if he keeps on—the way he is—"

"Oh, no, Cordelia! You know as well as Ido—there has never been anything likethat in our family."

Nevertheless the two sisters looked at

each other with awe-stricken eyes, andthen their arms went around each otherand they eased their hearts in the

immemorial manner

"You know, he worries because we arethe last of the Spencers," said Cordelia,

"and the family dies with us Even if you

or I had children, I don't think he wouldtake it so hard—"

A wistful look passed over their faces,such as you might expect to see on thosewho had repented too late and stoodlooking through St Peter's gate at scenes

in which they knew they could never take

a part

"But I am forty-eight," sighed Cordelia

"And I—I am fifty—"

The two sisters had been writing whenthis conversation started They were busy

on a new generation of the Spencer-Spicergenealogy, and if you have ever engaged

on a task like that, you will know the

correspondence it requires But now for atime their pens were forgotten and they satlooking at each other over the gateleggedtable which served as desk They werestill both remarkably good-looking, thoughmarked with that delicacy of material andworkmanship—reminiscent of old china—which seems to indicate the perfect type ofspinster-hood Here and there in their hairgleamed touches of silver, and their

cheeks might have reminded you of tintedapples which had lightly been kissed with

sixty—although by a younger wife, ofcourse."

They looked it up and in so doing theycame across an Ezra Babcock, father-in-law of the Third Josiah Spencer, who hadhad a son proudly born to him in his sixty-fourth year

They gazed at each other then, those twomaiden sisters, like two conspirators intheir precious innocence

"If we could find Josiah a young wife—"said the elder at last

"Oh, Cordelia!" breathed Patty, "if,

indeed, we only could!"

Which was really how it started

As I think you will realize, it would be astory in itself to describe the progress ofthat gentle intrigue—the consultations, thegradual eliminations, the search, the

abandonment of the search—(which cameimmediately after learning of two elderlygentlemen with young wives—but nochildren!)—the almost immediate

resumption of the quest because of

Josiah's failing health—and finally thenthe reward of patience, the pious nudgeone Sunday morning in church, the

whispered "Look, Cordelia, that strangegirl with the Pearsons—no, the one withthe red cheeks—yes, that one!"—theexchange of significant glances, the

introduction, the invitation and last, butleast, the verification of the fruitfulness ofthe vine

The girl's name was Martha Berger andher home was in California She had comeeast to attend the wedding of her brotherand was now staying with the Pearsons afew weeks before returning west Her agewas twenty-six She had no parents, verylittle money, and taught French, Englishand Science in the high school back home.

"Have you any brothers or sisters!" askedMiss Cordelia, with a side glance towardMiss Patty

"Only five brothers and five sisters,"laughed Martha

For a moment it might be said that MissCordelia purred

"Any of them married?" she continued.

"All but me."

"My dear! … You don't mean to say thatthey have made you an aunt already?"

Martha paused with that inward lookwhich generally accompanies mentalarithmetic

"Only about seventeen times," she finallylaughed again

When their guest had gone, the two sistersfairly danced around each other

"Oh, Patty!" exulted Miss Cordelia, "I'msure she's a fruitful vine!"

CHAPTER II

There is something inexorable in the

purpose of a maiden lady—perhaps

because she has no minor domestic

troubles to distract her; and when youhave two maiden ladies working on thesame problem, and both of them possessed

of wealth and unusual intelligence—!

They started by taking Martha to NorthEast Harbor for the balance of the

summer, and then to keep her from goingwest in the fall, they engaged her to teachthem French that winter at quite a fabuloussalary They also took her to Boston and

bought her some of the prettiest dressesimaginable; and the longer they knew her,the more they liked her; and the more theyliked her, the more they tried to enlist hersympathies in behalf of poor Josiah—andthe more they tried to throw their brotherinto Martha's private company.

"Look here," he said one day, when histwo sisters were pushing him too hard

"What's all this excitement about Martha?Who is she, anyway?"

"Why, don't you know!" Cordelia sweetlyasked him, and drawing a full breath sheadded: "Martha—is—your—future—wife

—"

If you had been there, you would have

been pardoned for thinking that the last ofthe Spencers had suddenly discovered that

he was sitting upon a remonstrative bee

The two sisters smiled at him—rathernervously, it is true, but still they kepttheir hands upon their brother's shoulders,

as though they were two nurses soothing apatient and saying: "There, now … The-e-e-ere … Just be quiet and you'll feel better

"I'm—I'm too old—"

Almost speaking in concert they told himabout Captain Abner Spencer who hadchildren until he was sixty, and EzraBabcock, father-in-law of the third JosiahSpencer, who had a son proudly born tohim in his sixty-fourth year

"And she's such a lovely girl," said

Cordelia earnestly "Patty and I are quite

in love with her ourselves—"

"And think what it would mean to yourpeace of mind to have another son—"

"And what it would mean to Spencer &Son—!"

Josiah groaned at that As a matter of fact

he hadn't a chance to escape His twosisters had never allowed themselves to

be courted, but they must have had theirprivate ideas of how such affairs should

be conducted, for they took Josiah in handand put him through his paces with aspeed which can only be described asbreathless

Flowers, candy, books, jewellery, a ring,the ring—the two maiden sisters lived awinter of such romance that they nearlybloomed into youth again themselves; andwhenever Josiah had the least misgivingabout a man of fifty-two marrying a girl oftwenty-six, they whispered to him: "Thinkwhat it will mean to Spencer & Son—"And whenever Martha showed the leastmisgivings they whispered to her: "That's

only his way, my dear; you mustn't mindthat." And once Cordelia added (whilePatty nodded her head): "Of course, therehas to be a man at a wedding, but I wantyou to feel that you would be marrying us,

as much as you would be marrying Josiah.You would be his wife, of course, but youwould be our little sister, too; and Pattyand I would make you just as happy as wecould—"

Later they were glad they had told her this

It was a quiet wedding and for a timenothing happened; although if you couldhave seen the two maiden sisters at church

on a Sunday morning, you would havenoticed that after the benediction theyseemed to be praying very earnestly

indeed—even as Sarah prayed in thetemple so many years ago There was thiscurious difference, however: Sarah hadprayed for herself, but these two innocentspinsters were praying for another.

Then one morning, never to be forgotten,Martha thought to herself at the breakfasttable, "I'll tell them as soon as breakfast isover."

But she didn't

She thought, "I'll take them into the gardenand tell them there—"

But though she took them into the garden,somehow she couldn't tell them there

"As soon as we get back into the house,"

she said, "I'll tell them."

Even then the words didn't come, andMartha sat looking out of the window soquietly and yet with such a look of

mingled fear and pride and exaltation onher face, that Cordelia suddenly seemed todivine it

"Oh, Martha," she cried "Do you—do you

—do you really think—"

Miss Patty looked up, too—stricken

breathless all in a moment—and quickerthan I can tell it, the three of them had theirarms around each other, and tears andsmiles and kisses were blended—quite inthe immemorial manner